Specters of venality -- The mystic challenge -- The curse of quietism -- Spinoza's ghost -- The sleep of reason -- The politics of alienation -- Revolutionary reveries.

Throughout the history of social thought, there has been a constant battle over the true nature of society, and the best way to understand and explain it. This volume covers the development of methodological individualism, including the individualist theory of society from Greek antiquity to modern social science. It is a comprehensive and systematic treatment of methodological individualism in all its manifestations.

Throughout the history of social thought, there has been a constant battle over the true nature of society, and the best way to understand and explain it. This volume covers the development of methodological individualism, including the individualist theory of society from Greek antiquity to modern social science. It is a comprehensive and systematic treatment of methodological individualism in all its manifestations.

Bernard Howells explores the problematics surrounding individualism and history in a number of prose texts, and situates Baudelaire within the broader contexts of nineteenth century historical, cultural and artistic speculation, represented by Emerson, Carlyle, Joseph de Maistre, Guiseppe Ferrari and Eugene Chreveul. This major new work will be of interest not only to Baudelaire specialists, but also to scholars working in any area of nineteenth-century French studies.".

Christian Jakob Kraus (1753–1807), political economist and Professor of Practical Philosophy at the University of Königsberg, has long been neglected by historians, dismissed as a translator, a teacher, and a derivative disciple of Adam Smith. This article posits sociability as a useful category for understanding Kraus’s life, thought, and legacy. It aims to thereby reposition him as a meaningful figure in the late German Enlightenment. First, Kraus is presented as a natural Einsiedler who, surrounded by the commercially vibrant Königsberg, comes (...) to champion a methodology foregrounding praxis, lived experience, and the application of ideas for communal benefit. This ‘sociable’ approach to knowledge is contextualised within broader critiques of scholarly esotericism across Germany. Second, his work is treated as a case study elucidating the interdependence of individualism and sociability in the wider European Enlightenment. I argue that Kraus expressed a ‘sociable individualism,’ drawing upon Smith and Immanuel Kant, which harmonised autonomy and community. (shrink)

Explores the theories of democratic individualism articulated in the works of the American transcendentalist writer Ralph Waldo Emerson, pragmatic philosophers William James and John Dewey, and African-American novelist and essayist Ralph Ellison.

It is widely assumed that the explanatory states of scientific psychology are type-individuated by their semantic or intentional properties. First, I argue that this assumption is implausible for theories like David Marr's [1982] that seek to provide computational or syntactic explanations of psychological processes. Second, I examine the implications of this conclusion for the debate over psychological individualism. While most philosophers suppose that syntactic states supervene on the intrinsic physical states of information-processing systems, I contend they may not. Syntatic (...) descriptions must be adequately constrained, and the most plausible such constraints appeal to a system's teleological function or design and hence to its history. As a result, physical twins may not realize the same syntactic states. (shrink)

Individualism is one of most criticized and least understood ideas in social and political thought. Is individualism the ability to act independently amidst a web of social forces? A vital element of personal liberty and a shield against conformity? Does it lead to or away from unifying individuals with communities? Individualism: A Reader provides a wealth of illuminating essays from the 17th to the early 20th centuries. In 26 selections from 25 writers individualism is explained and (...) defended, often from unusual perspectives. This anthology includes not only selections from well-known writers, but also many lesser-known pieces--reprinted here for the first time--by philosophers, social theorists, and economists who have been overlooked in standard accounts of individualism. The depth and complexity of ideas about individualism are reflected in the six sections in this collection. The first examines individuality generally, with the following five detailing social, moral, political, religious, and economic individualism. Throughout, individualism is analyzed and defended through the lenses of classical liberalism, free-market libertarianism, individual anarchism, voluntary socialism, religious individualism, abolitionism, free thought, and radical feminism. Both richly historical and sharply contemporary, Individualism: A Reader provides a multitude of perspectives and insights on personal liberty and the history of freedom. (shrink)

Is libertarianism a progressive doctrine, or a reactionary one? Does libertarianism promise to liberate the poor and the marginalized from the yoke of state oppression, or does talk of "equal liberty" obscure the ways in which libertarian doctrines serve the interests of the rich and powerful? Through an examination of the history of libertarianism, this book argues that the answer is (and always has been): both. In this book we explore the neglected 19th century roots of libertarianism to show (...) that it emerged first as a radical and progressive doctrine. Libertarianism took a conservative turn in the 20th century primarily as a reaction against the rise of state socialism. Now, with international communism no longer a threat, libertarianism is in the midst of an identity crisis, with progressive and reactionary elements struggling to claim the doctrine as their own, most notably on issues of race. This book tells the history of libertarianism through an examination of six defining themes: private property, skepticism of authority, free markets, individualism, spontaneous order, and individual liberty. In doing so, it reveals that history to be longer, wider, and considerably more diverse than is commonly believed. It is a history full of internal tensions, idiosyncratic personalities, and surprising arguments. It is a history of the men (and sometimes women) who called themselves: The Individualists. (shrink)

A study of the political philosophy of Herbert Spencer, this book examines the thought of the man considered by many to be the greatest philosopher of Victorian Britain, and the ideas of the Individualists, a group of political thinkers inspired by him to uphold the policy of laissez-faire during the 1880s and 1890s. Despite their important contribution to nineteenth-century political debate, these thinkers have been neglected by historians, who Taylor argues have concentrated instead on the advocates of an enhanced role (...) for government in economic and social affairs. Offering the first comprehensive view of free-market conservatism in an historical context, Taylor provides an original perspective on Spencer's political philosophy as well as the nature of late Victorian political argument in general. (shrink)

Given anti-individualism, a subject might have a priori (non-empirical)knowledge that she herself is thinking that p, have complete and exhaustive explicational knowledge of all of the concepts composing the content that p, and yet still need empirical information (e.g. regarding her embedding conditions and history) prior to being in a position to apply her exhaustive conceptual knowledge in a knowledgeable way to the thought that p. This result should be welcomed by anti-individualists: it squares with everything that compatibilist-minded (...) anti-individualists have said regarding e.g. the compatibility of anti-individualism and basic self-knowledge; and more importantly it contains the crux of a response to McKinsey-style arguments against anti-individualism. (shrink)

Drawing from the development of individualism in western philosophy and American history, this book constructs a normative theory called authentic individualism. Using the precepts of that theory, it urges organizational leaders to change the way they think about their organizations and their organizations' social function. Students and scholars of political science, social science, public administration, moral theory and organizational theory will find this a useful work. Contents: Introduction to Individualism; PART ONE: A Model of the Individual (...) from Western Philosophy; The Individual of the Ancients; The Individual of the Dark Ages; The Individual of Modernity; PART TWO: A Model of the Individual in the United States; Rugged Individualism of the Revolutionary U.S.; Rational Individualism After Romanticism and Reform; Radical Individualism from Disillusionment and Loss of Faith; PART THREE: Synthesis of Philosophies Toward a More Socially Responsible Individualist in the Third Millennium; Need for a New World View; Changing the Paradigm; Soul of the Third Administrative State; Notes; Bibliography; Index. (shrink)

n this paper, I examine the charge that Gopnik and Meltzoff’s ‘Child as Scientist’ program, outlined and defended in their 1997 book Words, Thoughts and Theories is vitiated by a form of ‘cognitive individualism’ about science. Although this charge has often been leveled at Gopnik and Meltzoff’s work, it has rarely been developed in any detail. -/- I suggest that we should distinguish between two forms of cognitive individualism which I refer to as ‘ontic’ and ‘epistemic’ cognitive (...) class='Hi'>individualism (OCI and ECI respectively). I then argue - contra Ronald Giere – that Gopnik and Meltzoff’s commitment to OCI is relatively unproblematic, since it is an easily detachable part of their view. By contrast, and despite their explicit discussion of the issue, their commitment to ECI is much more problematic. (shrink)

John Locke's labor theory of property is one of the seminal ideas of political philosophy and served to establish its author's reputation as one of the leading social and political thinkers of all time. Through it Locke addressed many of his most pressing concerns, and earned a reputation as an outstanding spokesman for political individualism - a reputation that lingers widely despite some partial challenges that have been raised in recent years. In this major new study Matthew Kramer offers (...) an extensive critique of the labor theory and investigates the consequences of its downfall. With incisive analyses of the merits and failings of many aspects of Locke's political thought, Kramer advances a powerful challenge to Locke's image as an individualist. Employing a rigorously philosophical methodology, but remaining aware of the insights generated by historical approaches to Locke, Kramer concludes that Locke's political vision was in fact profoundly communitarian. (shrink)

The debate between the individualist and the holist understanding of social items (social entities, events, institutions, phenomena and so on) has a long history and potentially a wide range of political implications. Political positions and political assumptions often play a significant role in the debate and it is not rare that participants in the discussion seek to associate the positions they oppose with unpopular political views, instead of providing actual theoretical arguments. The tendency to associate individualist positions in the (...) social sciences with political libertarianism and neo-liberal economic agendas is particularly common. At the same time, disciplinary politics and concerns about the integrity of the social sciences (especially in the form of fears from their reducibility to psychology) also play an important role in the debate. In this paper I analyze such political assumptions that often motivate, or are stated to motivate, the debate. (shrink)

In this acclaimed exploration of the search for "authentic" individual identity, Marshall Berman explores the historical experiences and needs out of which this new radicalism arose. Focussing on eighteenth-century Paris, a time and place in which a distinctively modern form of society was just coming into its own, Berman shows how the ideal of authenticity—of a self that could organize the individual's energy and direct it toward his own happiness—articulated eighteenth-century man's deepest responses to this brave new world, and his (...) most ardent hope for a new life in it. Exploring in particular the ideas of Montesquieu and Rousseau, Berman shows how the ideal of authenticity was radically opposed to the bourgeois, capitalistic idea of "self-interest.". (shrink)

Since this book is a cross-disciplinary study in philosophy and legal history, it may present some problems for readers who come to it with strong interests ...

The idea that the Renaissance witnessed the emergence of the modern individual remains a powerful myth. In this important new book Martin examines the Renaissance self with attention to both social history and literary theory and offers a new typology of Renaissance selfhood which was at once collective, performative and porous. At the same time, he stresses the layered qualities of the Renaissance self and the salient role of interiority and notions of inwardness in the shaping of identity.

Jordan Peterson has attracted a high level of attention. Controversies may bring people into contact with Peterson's work, but ideas are arguably what keep them there. Focusing on those ideas, this book explores Peterson’s answers to perennial questions. What is common to all humans, regardless of their background? Is complete knowledge ever possible? What would constitute a meaningful life? Why have humans evolved the capacity for intelligence? Should one treat others as individuals or as members of a group? Is a (...) single person powerless in the face of evil? What is the relation between speech, thought, and action? Why have religious myths and narratives figured so prominently in human history? Are the hierarchies we find in society good or bad? After devoting a chapter to each of these questions, Champagne unites the different strands of Peterson’s thinking in a handy summary. Champagne then spends the remaining third of the book articulating his main critical concerns. He argues that while building on tradition is inevitable and indeed desirable, Peterson’s individualist project is hindered by the non-revisable character and self-sacrificial content of religious belief. This engaging multidisciplinary study is ideal for those who know little about Peterson’s views, or for those who are familiar but want to see more clearly how Peterson’s views hang together. The debates spearheaded by Peterson are in full swing, so Myth, Meaning, and Antifragile Individualism should become a reference point for any serious engagement with Peterson’s ideas. (shrink)

Neo‐Aristotelian ethical naturalism purports to show that moral evaluation of human action and character is an evaluation of natural goodness—a kind of evaluation that applies to living things in virtue of their nature and based on their form of life. The standard neo‐Aristotelian view defines natural goodness by way of generic statements describing the natural history, or the ‘characteristic’ life, of a species. In this paper, I argue that this conception of natural goodness commits the neo‐Aristotelian view to a (...) problematic anti‐individualism that results in the wrong assessment of individuals with uniquely adaptive adjustments. I then offer an alternative account of natural goodness that avoids this problem. Instead of relying on generic statements about a species, my account defines natural goodness based on counterfactual conditionals describing the modal properties of a single individual. I argue that this modal‐explanatory account gives a conception of natural goodness that is more intuitively plausible and better suited to capture the diversity and plasticity distinctive of life. (shrink)

Epistemic anti-individualism is the view that positive epistemic statuses fail to supervene on internal, physical or mental, properties of individuals. Intellectual humility is a central intellectual virtue in the pursuit of such statuses. After some introductory remarks, this paper provides an argument for epistemic anti-individualism with respect to a virtue-theoretic account of testimonial knowledge. An outline of a dual-aspect account of intellectual humility is then offered. The paper proceeds to argue that insofar as testimonial knowledge is concerned, this (...) stripe of epistemic anti-individualism leads to a particular account of intellectual humility. (shrink)

The authors discuss findings from a qualitative research project concerning applied ethics that was undertaken at a general family counseling agency in southern Ontario. Interview data suggested that workers need to dialogue about ethical dilemmas, but that such dialogue demands a high level of risk taking that feels unsafe in the organization. This finding led the researchers to examine their own sense of "breaking rules" by suggesting an intersubjective view of ethics that requires a "safe space" for ethical dialogue. The (...) authors critique the individualistic tendency of professional ethics as an effect of power that is tied to the history of professionalism, and discuss the role of bureaucracies in diminishing a central role for ethics in helping services. The authors call for elaboration of critical perspectives on ethics in order to promote the centrality of ethics in the helping professions. (shrink)

E. H. Gombrich in 1968: Methodological Individualism and the Contradictions of Conservatism The commonalities Gombrich affirmed between his own positions on science, politics, and art and those of his friend Karl Popper are key to understanding both his work on the history of style and the conservative fulminations on method he published from the early 1950s onwards. United with Popper by their shared experience of exile from fascism, Gombrich failed to register the amateurish character of Popper's political theory (...) and that his aversion to notions of social determination disabled the historian. Popper's skepticism regarding the ontological status of social collectivities and rejection of the concept of totality reinforced Gombrich's suspicions of holistic analysis and led him to fall back on naturalistic descriptions of individuals acting in a social world glued together by such commonsensical categories as "traditions" and "institutions". In this regard he is representative of the common aversion to sociology of the British intellectual establishment in the early Cold War. (shrink)

This book is an attempt to describe the interaction between the individual and his society. Miller claims that society gets its creative thrusts forward from the minds of its single individuals. Also each individual depends on feedback from his society in order to discover how his quest for the ideal self is going. The work includes a short history of the concept of individualism. There is a distinction drawn between the "open society" which provides the conditions necessary for (...) the individual to become himself and the "closed society" which stifles individual development. The author is aware that some philosophies can overstress the importance of the individual, as he is critical of some individualistic thinkers, e.g., Kierkegaard, because they neglect what he calls the social component of the self. Miller holds the view that work is important for self-actualization, but fails to mention the effect of automation and the crisis of leisure on a society dependent on this kind of self-actualization.--S. O. H. (shrink)

This two-volume work provides a new understanding of Western subjectivity as theorized in the Augustinian Rule. A theopolitical synthesis of Antiquity, the Rule is a humble, yet extremely influential example of subjectivity production. In these volumes, Jodra argues that the Classical and Late-Ancient communitarian practices along the Mediterranean provide historical proof of a worldview in which the self and the other are not disjunctive components, but mutually inclusive forces. The Augustinian Rule is a culmination of this process and also the (...) beginning of something new: The paradigm of the monastic self as protagonist of the new, medieval worldview. Three main theoretical challenges leading to, and present in the Rule are tackled: What are the sources of our modern understanding of subjectivity? Can Ancient sources provide an alternative genealogy that resists the individualistic turn of Modernity? And can the commons be saved without suppressing individuality? Jodra seeks to prove that the synthesis-which is also an appropriation-of Greek and Judaic sources carried out by the first Christians allowed for two contrasting models of subjectivity, the self-less and the other-less, to 'take turns' to dominate our understanding of human nature. The Greek world provided the political dimension and the Jewish world established the key theological principles of a Mediterranean synthesis which took place in Rome. Coherently and progressively, Jodra emphasizes the theopolitical nature of our worldview even today, and claim that the subject of the primitive Church is its most visible incarnation. These volumes therefore restore the unity of the Hellenistic and Judaic world as found by the first Christians, proving that the self and the other are two essential pieces in the construction of our world. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Nietzsche and the Bachar‐Yerian To Bolt or Not to Be and John Stuart Mill Coda: Taylor and The Path Notes.

A complex conjuncture of ideological constructions obscured and rationalized the systematic exploitation of farm women. First, farming and homemaking, to which people cling in an attempt to avert the alienation of wage labor, provide a basis for evaluating one's labor in terms that, ironically, makes them vulnerable to super-exploitation. Second, agrarian ideologies, with their strongly patriarchal bias, did not allow women to understand themselves as public actors. Modernizing elite ideologies, specifically the equation of entrepreneurial individualism and efficiency with “progress” (...) and affluence, and the “cult of domesticity” with its redefinition of men's and women's roles, promised women greater equality within the family; however, these normative codes simultaneously opened the farm and home to greater dependence on capitalist markets. The ideology of entrepreneurial individualism also provided templates through which farm men and women (mis)understood their relative poverty as being the result of private, individual choices. In addition, virtually all media assumed a sector differentiated only by commodity, rendering size, class, or other distinctions invisible. Finally, the ideology of separate spheres, as it developed in the nineteenth century, created a segmented and discriminatory labor market for women. The period focused on, the late 1940s and the 1950s, was crucial in establishing the terms of the post-War order. (shrink)

Analyzing the doctrine of methodological individualism and its opposition to methodological holism, I start by briefly reviewing three historical periods in which the discussion around it was very lively (i.e., the turn of the century around 1900, the 1950s, and the 1980s-90s) explicating the variety of characterizations of methodological individualism. To highlight the connection of these philosophical discussions to social scientific practice, intradisciplinary as well as interdisciplinary dynamics, I then look into the debates around microfoundations (in the 1980s) (...) and so-called economics imperialism in the social sciences (and its impact within political science in the 1990s). While both the microfoundations project and economics imperialism are driven by methodological individualists, here too it seems important to pay attention to the variety of understandings of methodological individualism as well as the exact ambition of their undertakings (evaluated along different dimensions, i.e., ontological, epistemological, axiological, and institutional). Overall, I conclude that when looking into the history of the social sciences, the best philosophers can do when discussing methodological individualism and holism is to carefully distinguish the broad variety of positions that can be evaluated along multiple dimensions, to demonstrate the benefits of methodological pluralism as well as expose the downsides of methodological monocultures. (shrink)

Nothing is more mysterious for man than the substance of his own body. Every society has attempted in its way to give a particular answer to this primary enigma in which man has his roots. Innumerable theories of the body that have followed each other during the course of history or that still coexist today are directly connected to the world views of these different societies. Even more, they are dependent on the conceptions of the person. The modern view (...) of the body, that which anatomo-physiology incarnates, is a direct function of the emergence and development of individualism within the European societies of the Renaissance, especially in the 17th century, that marks a crystallization, very clear at the social level, of this tendency. Moreover, the explosion of the present knowledge of the body that makes anatomophysiology one theory among others, even though it is dominant, denotes another stage in individualism, a yet stronger falling back on the ego: the emergence of a society in which the atomization of individuals has become an important fact, an atomization submitted to or desired, according to the case, which does not appear in contradiction to present research in new ways of socializing, new forms of tribalism and so on, as is clearly indicated by what we agree to call the associative phenomenon. This is a characteristic of societies in which individualism is a structural fact: the development of an infinitely plural and polyphonic character. In these societies, in fact, the initiative is assumed by individuals or groups more than it is in a culture that tends to become a simple formal framework. (shrink)

Smith is generally regarded as an individualist without qualification. This paper argues that his predominantly individualist policy prescription is rooted in a more complex philosophy. He sees nature, including human nature, as a vast machine supervised by God and designed to maximise human happiness. Human weaknesses, as well as strengths, display the wisdom of God and play their part in this scheme. While Smith pays lip service to justice, it is really social order that pre-occupies him, and within that, the (...) defence of property. Individuals are valued as bearers of property. As persons, individuals are deceived by nature into acting in a socially beneficial way. In different ways Smith systematically denies the autonomy of the individual with respect to the whole of which he is part. For Smith, individual liberty is, not the end, but the means, of sustaining social order and property. (shrink)

C.B. Macpherson's “Possessive Individualist” reading of Locke is one of the most radical and influential interpretations in the history of exegesis. Despite a substantial critical response over the past five decades, Macpherson's reading remains orthodox in various circles in the humanities generally, particularly in legal studies, and his interpretation of several crucial passages has unwittingly been followed even by his sharpest critics within Lockean scholarship. In order to present the definitive rebuttal to this interpretation, and so finally to lay (...) it to rest, I argue that every one of Macpherson's key pieces of textual evidence can be rejected entirely on its own terms; that is, by reference to no more than its immediate context. In this way I contend that fault of the Possessive Individualist reading lies far deeper than mere cherry-picking of the Lockean corpus, but centrally involves misreading, misplacing and misrepresenting the very parts of Locke's work Macpherson cites as evidence for his reading. (shrink)

This contribution to the topical collection presents an overview of my previous work in epistemology. Specifically, I review arguments for the claim that important skeptical arguments in the history of philosophy motivate externalism in epistemology. In effect, only externalist epistemologies can be anti-skeptical epistemologies. I also review motivations for adopting a virtue-theoretic account of epistemic normativity. Such an account, I argue, has considerable explanatory power regarding the nature, value and scope of knowledge. In addition, a virtue-theoretic account is tailor (...) made for externalism. In effect, it shows how externalist epistemologies can also be normative epistemologies. Finally, I review arguments in favor of a general framework for understanding the epistemology of testimony, and, in particular, the transmission of knowledge. The framework motivates anti-reductionism in the epistemology of testimony, as well as the common anti-reductionist theme that trust can be epistemically significant, as opposed to merely practically significant. The framework, I argue, also weds nicely to a virtue-theoretic account of epistemic normativity, and in doing so answers an important objection to virtue epistemology—that the view is overly individualistic. (shrink)

The case history in the colonial context was a hybrid form, caught between bureaucratic pressures toward racialization, aggregation, and generalization, on the one hand, and the individualistic bias of the genre, on the other. This tension posed a problem for colonial rulers. In their drive to harvest neat, ideologically reliable knowledge about the minds of colonial subjects, officials and researchers in the 20th-century British Empire read case histories in selective ways, pared them down to simplistic fables, and ultimately bypassed (...) them whenever they could. In other words, although they worked mightily to bend the case history to their purposes, they never fully succeeded. The authority granted to personal testimony and the capaciousness of the detail in case histories always contained a subversive potential. As a result, the politics of the colonial case history were underdetermined, overflowing the categories and resisting the generalizations that colonial rulers sought to impose. (shrink)

This is the first of the three Storrs Lectures that Berlin gave at Yale University in 1962. It is part of the version of intellectual history that he developed to underwrite his views about politics. This focused especially on the fourth century b.c., the Renaissance and the Romantic movement. The contribution of the Greeks, in this respect, was the discovery that the life and destiny of the individual did not need to be necessarily conceived in terms of his society.